A traders dream
The trader falls asleep after a frightful day trading the markets and soon starts dreaming.
The market is a highly intelligent, evil, powerful and harmful monster. It sits at the entrance to a huge cave of unlimited amounts of gold. It knows that your intentions are to take away the gold from its cave. It does'nt like that and it will try it's best to keep you from being sucessful. In the process of guarding it's gold, it will most likely cause irrepairable physical and emotional damage to you. So when we begin our trading careers, we are naive unarmed amatuer tourist miners, who walking in the woods at the beginning of "tourist season" get a glimpse of the shiny riches inside the cave. Since we have no clue on how to mine, we take our little play picks and shovels, run inside the cave and start chipping away at the gold. The monster watches us, smiling to itself. Ahh...fools, I'll let them play awhile and then spring upon them when they stop to amuse me. So we're there chipping away, and we manage to loosen a few gold ores. The few smart ones figure, Hmm... the gold is really hard to chip with these little picks and shovels. Let me take these little ores I have in my hand now, I'll buy better tools and then come back to get more gold ores. The majority of the stupid ones keep on chipping away with their little tools, until the monster gets tired of being amused by their various antics and proceeds to pounce on them with a vengeance. The monster forcible takes away all the gold they managed to chip away and then proceeds to severely maul them. The poor amatuer miners eventually are forced to flee for their lives, never to return. However there are a few greedy amatuers who refuse to leave and perish within.
The smart few amatuers who had left quickly with their few pieces of gold ore, have now reached the nearest town. They proceed to the hardware store and ask the proprieter for the best mining tools available for the task at hand. The proprieter, being a businessman, shows them all the latest most expensive gadgets making the comment that the amatuers needed everything to get the job done. A majority of the smart amatuers take the proprieters advice and purchase the latest and greatest and head back to the mines. However a few of the smart amatuers run into some old miners sitting playing cards in the corner and strike up a conversation. The old timers smirk knowingly and say to the amatuers, ahh....once we were young and foolish like you and thought we could carry away all the gold in that cave if only we had the right tools. Since you are here purchasing these tools, we assume that you did not come across the market that guards the gold in the cave. Beware, mining tools is not all that you need. You also need to carry weapons to protect yourself. So if the market attacks you, you can keep it at bay and retreat safely. The market can not be killed, but it can feel pain and will let you retreat if you are not carry too much of its gold. Be careful, if you have too much of its gold, it will follow you and harm you. It will not give up if you take too much of its gold, because it wants it back. The old timers proceed to give more advice to the few remaining smart amatuers. They are told that they do not have to buy everything that the proprieter pushes upon them. The oldtimers point out the few mining tools that the smart amatuers will need along with the weapons they will need to carry for protection from the market. Thus being forewarned by the oldtimers, the few minority of the smart ones head out to the cave of unlimited riches.
In the meantime the first group of smart amatuers have already reached the cave of unlimited riches. The Market again sits in the dark, being amused by the attempts of this new groups of miners trying to takes its gold. However, it notices that this new group is using better tools and mining more gold ore faster. Some in this group find that they have mined enough for their immediate needs , take the ore and leave to return to town. They go to the proprieter excitedly showing how much ore they've got. They are pleased with themselves when the propreiter of the hardware store observes that they are no longer amatuers but semi professionals. The proprieter shows them the latest tools to fit their semi-professional status which they obligingly purchase at premium prices. This new small group of semi-pros now head back to the cave with their new advanced tools. In the meantime in the absence of the now new semi-pros, the Market having duly noted that some gold ore had already left its cave had proceeded to severely maul the group of smart amatuers who had been greedily piling up more ore than they could carry. Most perished and some smarter ones managed to flee with the small amount they could carry in their haste. Those who managed to flee, proceeded to the hardware store and recounted their horror tales to the proprieter. Some even accused the proprieter of malice because he had not forewarned them of the evil Market guarding the cave of unlimited riches. The proprieter shrugged and replied that was not his job. His job was to sell tools to anyone who came into his store. The small ragtag group of surviors huddled together in the corner trying to figure out their next move whne they noticed the old-timers playing cards in the corner. They again recounted their story to the oldtimers and the oldtimers recounted their own maulings long time ago when they first started mining the cave of unlimited wealth. They recalled good friends who went in and never came back out and yet others who had gone in, managed to survive the maulings but never returned. If only someone had told them about the evil malicious market before they had gone in to dig out the ore. If only they had taken adequate protection to fight the the market when it started to attack. If only someone had told them how the market behaved. The market was not erratic, they said. The market enjoys watching the greed in the miners eyes, it enjoys watching the miners fight amongst each other for the best ore, thats why the market never attacks right away. It attacks only after it gets bored by the amusement. The old timers said now since they had been forewarned by all the knowledge, the smart-amatuer survivors were no longer amatuers, but semi-professionals.
As the oldtimers were talking with the smart amatuers who had managed to survive the mauling, the new group of "semi-pros" proceeded to the cave. As they enetered the cave, they found the prior group of smart amatuers who had been forwarned by the old-timers to carry arms, fighting with a massive beast. The beast was trying to take back all the ore that had been mined and the miners with arms were fighting back to keep their ore. In the midst of all this, some miners managed to escape with a few ores, while others fought till their weapons became useless, and they perished at the hands of the market. The few who managed to get out, cautioned the new group of semi-pros to take as much ore as they could, in as little time as they could and leave the cave quickly before the Market beast got bored and started to maul the miners. The semi-pros went in and started mining, most left quickly with the little ore they mined. Alas, a few of the semi-professionals got caught up in their own greed and believed that their lastest pro-version weapons would keep the market beast at bay, they however perished. It was too late for them to understand that the market can not be controlled or kept at bay. Eventually it will get you.
By now all the greedy or unlucky amatuers and smart amatuers and semi-pros have perished leaving only the experienced survivors, the professionals. The real professionals who know they can not be greedy. They know they have to be quick and take whatever ore they can and leave quickly. They also know that the market cannot be defeated but can be kept at bay with the correct weapons long enough to leave the cave unharmed. Most of these professionals do not make any effort to caution the amatuers that come in during the new season, they know the market needs to be kept amused and the new amatuers provide a good diversion for them to mine a little extra ore beyond what the market would normally allow.
The trader awakes in the morning and is perturbed by this dream. He gets up to get dressed to go to his office. While getting dressed, he looks in the mirror, and what he sees in the mirror is the market beast...
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